Last Friday, the White House announced its "It's On Us" initiative aimed at combating sexual assaults on college campuses. I'm all in favor of combating sexual assault, but the first priority in combating a problem is understanding it.

WASHINGTON - What was the Islamic State thinking? We know it is sophisticated in its use of modern media. But what was the logic of propagating to the world videos of its beheadings of two Americans (and subsequently a Briton) - sure to inflame public opinion?

WASHINGTON - As a South Carolinian, it befalls me to examine the peculiarities afflicting our former governor and now-congressman Mark Sanford, who, contrary to decorum and taste, continues to demand attention.

"I should have anticipated the optics," President Barack Obama said by way of acknowledging that golfing right after making a statement about the beheading of James Foley looked bad. "Part of this job is also the theater of it," he said. "It's not something that always comes naturally to me. But it matters."

WASHINGTON - At his first press briefing after the beheading of American James Foley, President Barack Obama stunned the assembled when he admitted that he had no strategy in Syria for confronting the Islamic State. Yet it was not nearly the most egregious, or consequential, thing he said.

Several recent events in North Georgia involving government transparency - or the lack thereof - prompted friends and colleagues in other parts of the country to ask whether I am living in some 18th century time warp, as they frequently perceive this portion of the country, where absolutists reign with absolute disregard for their subjects.

On the Internet, you're never really alone. Name any fad, any cause, any hobby or passion - Shaker furniture? Dungeons and Dragons, Bolivian tree frogs? - and you're only a few clicks away from someone who shares your obsession.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is highly exercised about "inversion," the practice by which an American corporation acquires a foreign company and moves its headquarters out of the U.S. to benefit from lower tax rates abroad.

WASHINGTON - Baghdad called President Barack Obama's bluff and he came through. He had refused to provide air support to Iraqi government forces until the Iraqis got rid of their divisive sectarian prime minister.

"I don't understand how Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second and support Israel along the line of just following their president," vented Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, on Boston Herald Radio last week.

Of all the idiocies uttered in reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu's stunning election victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state while he is Israel's prime minister.